Saturday, February 24, 2007

I am delighted to see a blogger over at the Star Tribune's Buzz.mn has taken up the subject of house demolition.

This is a serious issue for Minneapolis, as several commenters on his post have noted. Demo-ing old houses does NOT fix a problem neighborhood, but in fact makes things worse as we eradicate our neighborhoods' history and replace it with modular shit which elicits zero pride and furthermore breaks up the continuity of the housing landscape.

At least that's my view.

Perhaps we need to re-enact the "dollar house" program, and encourage rehabbing. In addition to preserving quality, craftsman architecture, it would also provide psychological benefits as neighbors AND outsiders see that some people actually CARE enough to invest in North Minneapolis.

Monday, February 12, 2007

I cannot bring myself to show a photo of today's work on the house. It sucked.

After spending a zillion years at Home Depot cutting quarter-round moulding for the bedroom and living room, I was oh-so-ready to install it this fine Monday morning. So ready, in fact, that I neglected to google "intall quarter-round" as I had meant to.

Why bother? It's easy, right? Just hammer that crap in at an angle.

Yep.

Until the first piece breaks.

No problem! I'll just caulk that little flaw up later. (I keep hammering.)

Crack.

Crack.

Crack.

I gave up after having destroyed a good 30% of the moulding.

Then, I went to google, and learned that I was supposed to pre-drill my holes to prevent such cracking.

Saturday, February 3, 2007

And of course Nick Coleman was quick to snap up an easy opportunity for ridicule here.

I can only imagine how this could swell to ridiculous proportions by virtue of people hearing about Samuel's statement without actually reading it in its context. (Such as if they read about it in Coleman's article, or worse, if they hear about it through North High gossip channels.)

I can see it now, with mothers at a NH PTA meeting:

"Did you hear what Don Samuels said?"

"No, what?"

"He said to BURN OUR SCHOOL DOWN!"

"Nuh-uh, for real?"

"That's what the Soc teacher just told me!"

"What an asshole. Who does he think he is??"

Oy Veh. His point as I understood it was that he has no reverence for so-called community institutions if they are in fact failing the community. (These are my words, not his.) His criticism did not stop at North High, but extended to some local churches as well, asking why they did nothing to combat crime which occurs right outside their doors.

CM Samuels made a political mistake with his phrasing. He should not have said "burn it down" because he should have been saavy enough to anticipate the scores of teachers, parents, students and alumni that it would piss off.

About Me

I am a licensed real estate broker with Century 21 Luger Realty, preservationist, fixer-upper-type-nut, sometimes-landlord, and all-around house-addict. I love everything from Queen Annes to Bungalows to Foursquares to Farmhouses.
minneapolisgirlatgmaildotcom is where you can reach me!